Summary

Years into the future, magic has been revealed to the world, and Peter has the responsibility of testifying at the public inquiry to explain the inner workings of the Folly. He's dealing...about as well as can be expected.

Summary

It's almost creepily like Monique is reading his mind when she gets the look of someone who's just finished one thing and started another and says, "Actually . . . " drawing the word out.

Matías gives her the encouraging hmm? noise that goes next, and she looks up, smiling slightly.

"Have anything scheduled right now?" she asks, making Matías blink.

"Nothing that involves anyone else," he replies, and the smile widens as she tucks her phone back into her pocket, and moves to stand up.

"Well then," she says. "Since it also looks like you're finished, and God just parted the clouds to send down a miracle cancellation, I'm going to take advantage of what is probably going to be the only real opportunity for the next month and hijack you right upstairs to meet Maria."

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Summary

Matías likes getting to the office early. Always has. He figured out in university that his day just worked better if he rolled out of bed, stumbled through dressing, a breakfast bar and his first coffee, got dressed for whatever the day held, and then finished the mental work of waking up over his second coffee wherever he was meant to start his day - or at least nearby. It meant his brain got right into gear.

So he's at the Tower by around seven-thirty, and gets his second coffee of the day from Dandelion and Driftwood.

Summary

When the cab pulls up to his curb, Sam pays the cab-driver, pulls his duffle out of the back and slings it over his shoulder, and walks up his own driveway - to find a white guy he doesn't know sitting on his front doorstep. And that's not usually a thing that happens to him.

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Summary

"I'm not going to ask about specifics," she says, quietly, moving to walk a bit closer so (Sam's pretty sure) she can stay quiet, "because we both know you're not going to give them to me and fuck knows I get that. But given that it's all going to land in my lap if it does go wrong, your general impression would be . . . appreciated."

Summary

But it's Eva who asks, in the oblique-casual tone that knows damn well it's fooling nobody but is going to keep the act up anyway, because that sends its own message, "Are you aware of what Captain Rogers is doing?"

Maria looks at her and then closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath. And says, "Jesus Christ that's the most terrifying fucking question I've been asked in years."

Summary

"No offense meant, but I'm not up for games, Pepper - what do you want?"

Pepper startles Maria by being just as blunt - not that Pepper plays around much, but she's usually one for observing basic social niceties and putting the kind of lead-up to a conversation that means you more or less know where things are going. Apparently not right now. She just takes her cue from Maria instead.

"I want you to sign this," she says, as Eva takes a folder out of her bag and leans over to place the SI-stationery file she takes out of that in front of Maria on the table, "I want you to take the job I'm offering you, and I want you to sort out the absolute fucking rats'-nest of a mess in the security and personnel end of my company. I want to make goddamn sure that nobody ever manages to do what they did on Insight Day again."

Summary

Steve'd thought about it for a minute. You're saying Bucky had the equivalent of multiple abusive childhoods, one after the other.

Sam rubbed his forehead. Pretty much. And that shit leaves a lot of marks - I mean, it literally shapes the brain. He might remember when you were kids? Sam grimaced. But the other stuff might basically be mapped in deeper, because it happened so many times over. So much more.